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Bergson’s panpsychism

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Abstract

Physical processes manifest an objective order that science manages to discover. Commonly, it is considered that these processes obey the “laws of nature.” Bergson disputes this idea which ultimately constitutes a kind of Platonism. In contrast, he develops the idea that physical processes are a particular case of automatic behaviors. In this sense, they imply a motor memory immanent to matter, whose actions are triggered by some perceptions. This approach is obviously panpsychist. It gives matter a certain consciousness, even if the latter is different in nature from our consciousness. In some respects, this approach is similar to contemporary panpsychism because it claims that the psychic is a fundamental characteristic of nature, causally active. But it is also original because it does not constitute a theory of the origin of mind in nature.

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Notes

  1. See Deleuze (1966), Kolakowski (1985), Moore (1996), Ansell-Pearson (2002), Lawlor (2003), Guerlac (2006).

  2. See Jankélévitch (1959, pp. 120, 173–174), Capek (1971, pp. 189–201, 302–312), Lacey (1989, pp. 94, 129, 138), Worms (1997, pp. 251, 256–257, 278–279, 288–289), Mullarkey (1999, p. 55), Worms (2004, pp. 112–113, 164–165), Skrbina (2005, pp. 159–162), Riquier (2009, pp. 190–193), Miquel (2010, pp. 180–181), Barnard (2011, pp. 152, 193–198), Fell (2012, pp. 37, 51).

  3. Bergson (1998, p. 231).

  4. Bergson (1998, pp. 223–224, 232–233).

  5. Bergson (1998, p. 224).

  6. Bergson (2001, pp. 204–207).

  7. Bergson (1998, p. 218).

  8. Bergson (1991, pp. 202, 205, 245–246).

  9. Bergson (1991, p. 35).

  10. Bergson (1991, p. 182).

  11. Instead of using the term “physical qualities,” physicists commonly speak of “physical quantities.” But these “quantities” are in fact qualities that can be quantified. The proof of this is that these “quantities” have a unit, that there are different units (kilogram, coulomb, newton, joule, etc.) and that it is impossible to add physical quantities that have different units.

  12. Bergson (1998, p. 9).

  13. Bergson (1965, p. 61–62).

  14. Bergson (1965, p. 63). In Duration and Simultaneity, Bergson makes a mistake by claiming that the theory of relativity does not predict the slowing down of clocks. However, as he points out, this process does not contradict his conception of time (1965, pp. 5, 46). What contradicts his conception of time is the idea that time would only be an additional dimension of space, i.e. that temporal succession would be an illusion (1965, pp. 6, 61–63, 148–149). Einstein, for his part, acknowledges that the theory of relativity does not necessarily lead to this idea (1996, pp. 408–410), even if he supports it by invoking other arguments, in particular determinism in physics. See on this point the testimony of Popper who met Einstein in 1949 (Popper 1992, p. 148). For more details on the debate between Bergson and Einstein, see Canales (2015).

  15. Bergson (1998, p. 210–216).

  16. Two examples: “In any case, we may say in summary that according to what exact natural science teaches us, the entire realm of nature, in which we human beings on our tiny mote of a planet play only an infinitesimally small part, is ruled by definite laws which are independent of the existence of thinking human beings.” (Planck 1949, p. 181). “Now, this is not how I think of mathematics, nor, I believe, is it how most mathematicians or mathematical physicists think about the world. They think about it in a rather different way, as a structure precisely governed according to timeless mathematical laws.” (Penrose 1997, p. 2).

  17. Dretske (1977, pp. 267–268). Tooley (1977, p. 686).

  18. Bergson (1998, pp. 218–219).

  19. Ibid.

  20. For more details on this question, see Uzan (2003).

  21. Bergson (1998, pp. 313–316).

  22. Nancy Cartwright develops an additional critique of the concept of law in physics: “the fundamental laws of physics do not describe true facts about reality” (1983, p. 54); they are ceretis paribus laws (pp. 57–59). Like the criticism made by Bergson, this criticism leads to reject the notion of law of nature and to develop another ontology (Cartwright 2016).

  23. Bergson (1998, pp. 217, 236–237).

  24. Bergson (1998, pp. 231–232, 237–238).

  25. Bergson (1998, pp. 200–201).

  26. Ibid.

  27. Bergson (1991, pp. 222–223).

  28. Bergson (1991, pp. 81–82).

  29. Bergson speaks of “material point” and not of “atom,” probably because at the end of the nineteenth century the reality of atoms is still controversial in physics. See Chalmers (2009, pp. 227–230). But for him, there are really corpuscles conceived as more or less durable states of an undivided reality (1991, pp. 196–201, 1998, p. 203).

  30. Bergson (1991, pp. 38, 49).

  31. Ibid.

  32. Bergson (1991, pp. 202–203, 1998, pp. 200–201, 1965, pp. 47–49, 1920, pp. 22–23, 2007, pp. 129–130).

  33. Ibid.

  34. Bergson (1991, pp. 246–247).

  35. Bergson (1991, p. 202).

  36. Bergson (1991, pp. 195–196, 2007, pp. 133–134).

  37. Bergson (1991, pp. 203–204).

  38. Bergson (1991, pp. 38, 49).

  39. Bergson (1991, pp. 22–23).

  40. Bergson (1991, pp. 246–247).

  41. Bergson (1965, pp. 47–49).

  42. Bergson (1920, p. 23).

  43. Bergson (1991, pp. 246–247).

  44. Bergson (1965, p. 49).

  45. Bergson conceives of perception as a coincidence of the perceiver with the perceived (1991, pp. 35–37, 218–219, 222). Consequently, one can easily understand that matter is endowed with perceptual representation, but not with an “inner life.”

  46. Bergson (1991, p. 248. See also pp. 219, 235).

  47. Bergson (1998, pp. 15, 30–31).

  48. Bergson (1998, pp. 143–144). In this passage, Bergson asserts that a stone has no consciousness at all, including a neutralized consciousness. But this does not contradict what he says in Matter and Memory, where the notion of neutralized consciousness is applied to matter taken as a whole (1991, pp. 219, 235, 248).

  49. Bergson (1998, p. 143).

  50. Bergson (1998, p. 144).

  51. To anticipate the future, one must use elements of the past.

  52. Bergson (2017, pp. 254–255).

  53. Bergson (2017, p. 256).

  54. Ibid. Original text: cette conscience est “quelque chose de pratiquement nul, mais il n’est pas vrai que ce soit nul.”

  55. See in particular Armstrong (1983).

  56. On the basis of a panpsychist hypothesis similar to that of Bergson, Peirce is led to a similar conclusion before the discoveries of quantum physics (Peirce 1891, 6.12–6.13, 6.33, 1892a, 6.46).

  57. Bergson (1991, pp. 247–248, 1998, p. 218, 2017, p. 256).

  58. In terms of the interpretation of quantum physics, this amounts to saying that there would be “hidden variables,” but not physical ones.

  59. Bergson (1998, pp. 233–234).

  60. See in particular: Seager (1995, 2012), Griffin (1998), Strawson (2006, 2010), Nagel (2012), Chalmers (2015).

  61. Griffin (1998, pp. 49–50).

  62. Chalmers (2015, pp. 251–252).

  63. Nagel (2012, p. 49).

  64. Griffin (1998, p. 54), Strawson (2006, p. 4), Seager (2012, p. 27), Nagel (2012, pp. 37–40), Chalmers (2015, pp. 249–250). In his 2006 book, Strawson rejects “physicSalism,” but not “physicalism.” While the former corresponds to the idea that physics can describe experiential states, the second does not (2006, p. 4). Strawson then speaks of “physicalism” to designate a monism that admits the irreducibility of experiential states to non-experiential states, but that do not define the term “physical” (2006, p. 8). In his 2010 book, he adopts a new term, “mental and physical monism” (2010, pp. 46–47, 55–59).

  65. Griffin (1998, p. 31).

  66. Strawson (2006, pp. 14, 18), Seager (2012, p. 34), Nagel (2012, pp. 54–56), Chalmers (2015, p. 269).

  67. Griffin (1998, pp. 179–181), Strawson (2006, pp. 13–16), Seager (2012, pp. 22, 34), Nagel (2012, p. 61), Chalmers (2015, p. 253).

  68. Griffin (1998, pp. 179–185, 235), Strawson (2006, pp. 26–27), Seager (2012, p. 37), Nagel (2012, pp. 62–63), Chalmers (2015, pp. 257–258).

  69. Griffin adopts Whitehead’s idea that the “laws of nature” are habits of nature (1998, pp. 192–193), an idea which can first be found in Peirce (1891, 6.25, 1892b, 6.268), and which is quite comparable to that developed by Bergson.

  70. Strawson (2006, p. 18), Seager (2012, p. 31), Nagel (2012, pp. 18–20), Chalmers (2015, pp. 257, 262). Let us emphasize, however, that Nagel expresses clearly the necessity of questioning the intelligibility of the world, that is, the objective order in things. In this sense, like Bergson, he relates the mind–body problem and that of order in nature (2012, pp. 18–20), but without questioning the hypothesis of the laws.

  71. Bergson (1991, pp. 28–31).

  72. For this term, see Bergson (1991, p. 84).

  73. This can be the recall of an episode of the past or the perceptual recognition of something already perceived in the past.

  74. Bergson (1991, pp. 221–223, 235, 248–249).

  75. Bergson (1998, pp. 247–248, 1977, p. 255).

  76. Bergson (1998, pp. 197–198).

  77. Bergson (1998, p. 19).

  78. Ibid.

  79. Bergson (1998, pp. 53–54).

  80. Bergson considers that the first forms of life were not solid but gaseous. According to him, the basic physical properties of life are the slow accumulation of energy and its sudden release. For this, solidity is not necessary (1998, p. 256).

  81. The Big Bang theory was formulated at the end of the 1920 s, that is, after the publication of Bergson’s principal works. In Creative Evolution, he anticipates the idea of an evolving and even expanding universe. However, he conceives of this expansion as the successive addition of worlds by a creative supraconsciousness (1998, pp. 241, 247–248, 343). For more details on this question, see Gunter (1971).

  82. This is the main idea of Time and Free Will, summarized at the beginning of Creative Evolution.

  83. Griffin (1998, pp. 185–198).

  84. Nagel (2012, pp. 5–12).

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  1. Domaine universitaire du Pont de Bois, University of Lille-III, 59650, Villeneuve-d’Ascq, France

    Joël Dolbeault

  2. Noisy-le-Grand, France

    Joël Dolbeault

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Dolbeault, J. Bergson’s panpsychism. Cont Philos Rev 51, 549–564 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11007-018-9446-8

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